


Want Me Like Time

by TaleWorthTelling



Series: kiss each other clean [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, PWP, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 13:21:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2653445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaleWorthTelling/pseuds/TaleWorthTelling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky can't help thinking that Agent Carter and Steve have a lot in common.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Want Me Like Time

**Author's Note:**

> So normally a 13k rated E fic is a nice, solid piece with a smattering of sex in between plot and important things. This is not that fic. This is a very long porn scene with a smattering of feelings and introspection. Just so you know. It really is almost all sex. Maybe try another door if you're not looking for the Bucky Barnes Special: Feelings in the Nude. (It was more or less inspired by [this](http://bactaqueen.tumblr.com/post/100318488080/talewt-onemuseleft-ajacquelineofalltrades) post, but quickly veered into naked territory.)
> 
> Also, this takes place in a handwavey universe where Steve and Peggy are together during the war but very private about their relationship. Because reasons. 
> 
> Title from Iron & Wine's "Walking Far from Home". I'm predictable.

 

 

Agent Carter's knuckles are bruised. It's the first thing that he notices when she walks into the bar and seats herself next to him. It'd be hard not to notice even if he hadn't honed his observation skills in the service; years of scanning Steve for injuries and problems he'd tried to hide have well prepared him for the task, to say nothing of habitually checking over three younger siblings with the shared tendency to wander and get into their own trouble. Really, the amount of time Bucky spends assessing other people should concern him, but he's so used to it, gaze flowing head-to-toe in the practiced method that he's gotten down to a few seconds, that it's not going anywhere. So he notices her.

He may be sort of confused as to their standing with each other, but he can't not care about her.

"And the other guy?" he asks. He wraps her fingers awkwardly around his drink, knuckles inward. At least it's cold. Sort of.

She narrows her eyes at him. It's not a nasty look, just a little cool in its appraisal. "I'm sure he'll be thoughtful enough to let me know as soon as he wakes up."

Bucky winces. A gesture at the bartender gets him a nod and, a minute later, another drink. It's a slow night.

"Better not let Steve see that," he jokes. "You may not make it out of the building."

Her mouth quirks to the side. "Steve is a big boy. He has his battles as I have mine, and he understands that. I hardly think he'd be too upset."

"Of course he's upset seeing you hurt," Bucky dismisses. "That ain't what I meant, though."

"And what did you mean?"

He opens his mouth, then shakes his head. "Never mind."

Steve would deny it, but Bucky's ninety-nine percent certain that a woman holding her own and fighting her own battles gets Steve going. It's maybe not a polite thing to say, and of course Steve wants Peggy to be safe, would never want to see her in pain, but he, more than most, understands what it's like to be shut out for your own good or for what people think is in your best interest. Pain isn't everything. (And hasn't Bucky learned all of that for himself lately?) He knows what it's like to be discounted and told that you can't take care of yourself. He'll see a couple of scraped knuckles and instead of thinking _She's been hurt_ , he'll see evidence that she punched hard. He'll think _W_ _ho'd she hit, and what did they do to deserve it?_

So it's not without cause that Bucky thinks one look at her laying out a man twice her size would get Steve half-hard quick as you could say _he had it coming_.

It's probably not healthy, but then Bucky'd known a girl who couldn't get off unless they did it up on the roof, right near the edge, just for the danger, and in the scheme of things -- and especially knowing Steve as he does -- it could be worse.

It's maybe not something you say to his girl, though. Or any girl.

They finish their drinks with only a handful of words shared between them. It's not as awkward as it ought to be.

* * *

 

  
Steve doesn't often indulge in nostalgia -- hopefully not, as Bucky suspects, because to him there's nothing worth feeling nostalgic about -- but Bucky's sort of stuck like a scratched record and sometimes memories roll around until he shakes them loose and spits them out. He's at the bar again and so are Steve and the boys, which is nice, because Bucky's starting to like drinking alone so he thinks he maybe shouldn't do it. He's halfway through the story about Steve's one and only day working at Moe's Diner when something occurs to him.

"I don't know why you keep telling this story," Steve says. He's swirling the last inch of beer at the bottom of his glass, that wry half-smile on his face.

"Because it most perfectly illustrates what a bird-brained hot-head you are," Bucky says distractedly, still caught on this revelation. "Challenging a congressman to a fistfight because he tipped a waitress lousy wasn't your brightest hour."

"She had three kids," Steve insisted. "And he grabbed her ass, too. Told her what she could do for the rest of the money. It was enough."

"Well, I didn't vote for him."

"Something on your mind?" Gabe asks. His voice is light and casual, but Bucky sees what he's doing. They all do it sometimes, check in on him when he's somewhere else for a little while, and he snaps right back and grins at them. He's not grinning this time, though.

"Jesus, Steve, have you ever met a problem you didn't think about punching in the face?"

Steve looks taken aback, and he pretends to think a moment before he answers. "Gee, Buck. I guess the ones I woulda had to stand on a crate to reach. Them I kicked in the shins."

Everyone laughs a little, but Bucky shakes his head. It's not funny.

"No wonder you and your agent are so hot for each other," he mutters darkly. He regrets it almost immediately, but he said it, and he's no coward, so there it hangs between them. Might as well go all out. "Maybe you can take down a rampaging bull together next, then fall into the sack. Make sure it's a fascist bull, though. Wouldn't want to trample the people's liberty."

"Where's this coming from, Buck?" Steve's voice is level, but his eyes are hard and he's doing that jaw thing, the one that's always told Bucky how long he has to defuse a fight before it happens. (The answer is usually that he can't.)

He already knows that Steve won't hit him, but he is pissed. Hell, Bucky'd be pissed, too, if someone had said that to him. He's being a nasty little shit right now. But this is serious. It damn well matters.

"You haven't noticed that your primary hobby is righteously putting assholes in their place?"

"That's not fair."

"And now it's your day job, too. You can punch as many assholes as the day is long."

"Actually, sometimes I do this nifty thing where I throw my shield at them. Just for variety."

Bucky rolls his eyes. "And Agent Carter--"

Steve's eyes flash. The set of his shoulders changes as he sits up a little straighter, past the fun and games section of the evening. "Is intelligent, clever, and brave. She can talk her way into or out of anything she needs."

"And yet her first instinct is to pound jerks into the ground." _When she's out of rounds_ , he thinks, but doesn't say it. "Talk about validation."

The Commandos have been steadily easing away from their argument all along, but when Dugan puts on his best _Well, that got weird_ face, he knows he must be a bit drunk.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you've found yourself a Steve Rogers with more brains and bigger tits. Only she's a woman."

A lot drunk.

There can be absolutely no answer to that, and he's almost grateful when Steve's face screws up in perplexity and he elects to say nothing.

"Yeah, that one's on me," Bucky finally says. He pushes his half-finished glass away with two fingers. "Sorry."

"Like I said," Steve says gently. "Peggy's smart as a whip. If there's a problem to be handled, she'll handle it. If there's no two ways about it, then, yeah, she'll throw some fists. If she had options, she'd do something else. So would I."

Bucky wants to believe that. He wants, down to his bones, to believe that. But Steve's the kind of asshole who might just get stiff from going at it on the roof like good ol' Marcy from down the block, and Peggy may be smart, but she runs on the same fuel. He's sure of it. Yeah, sure, they're not violent people, but Bucky's been following Steve around a long time, and he can see that it's part of a bigger problem. Thrill-seeker doesn't even begin to cover it.

Steve may be one of the best tacticians on the field in this war, but don't think Bucky hasn't noticed how most of his plans involve his star-spangled ass taking point and leaping first into the fire. Bucky's starting to wonder if he even has a self-preservation instinct or if he still feels expendable. If that's why he crawled into a metal tube and let a bunch of kooks zap him with radiation just to see what would happen.

He's calmer now, if no more sober, so he figures he should try to explain. "You're the queen."

"If you say so, Buck."

He shakes his head. "No, no. Like chess. You're a powerful piece, you've got options, you're in charge, you think you can protect everyone. But you actually can't. You can still lose if you end up in the wrong spot at the wrong time. If you jump in too fast."

Steve's face softens. He wraps a weighty hand around Bucky's shoulder, jostles him a little, slides it further along until his whole arm is around him. He leans forward to rest his face in Bucky's hair, breathing warm air into Bucky's temples. He smells like ale and soap. The only thing missing is the smell of his art supplies and they could be back home if Bucky closes his eyes.

"I'm okay, Buck. I'm not the queen. I'm the guy playing the game."

The urge to reach behind Steve's pretty blond head and slam it forward into the bar crawls up Bucky's spine strong and compelling, but he heroically holds it in check. Tonight is not the night that he is going to change Steve Rogers.

"You are a piece, though, you know it?" He's getting kind of sloppy now, but he doesn't care overly much. And Steve does look good. He smiles at Steve the best way he remembers how.

"Not like you," Steve says, voice low and kind. Fond, almost. He shifts a bit in his seat. "And not here."

"Not ever," Bucky says, trying not to sound like a child. He's half-successful. "I was just having fun. I know you're taken now. Agent Carter's ... some kind of woman. You'll make pretty babies."

"Not this week, I hope."

"Well, I got..." He starts turning out his pockets looking for his government issued condoms. He doesn't have any use for them at the moment and they should go to a good home.

Steve looks torn between laughing and cringing as Bucky drops a handful of rubbers onto the bar. "Jesus, Bucky, come on..."

"Not enough? I figure your share with mine, that'll get you through the week. And you can talk about babies next week then."

Steve bites his lips hard while he scoops up the condoms and shoves them into his pocket. "I've got plenty, thanks."

"Well, you always were a horny little bastard, and now you can probably last longer, right? Or go again even. So you might need more than you think. Always be prepared, Rogers. Remember, Captain America wants you to wear a condom. Says so in the posters and everything."

"I should never have let you watch that VD prevention reel they made me do. All you did was laugh."

"How else would I know that every beautiful prostitute is secretly a spy trying to give me syphilis to compromise the war effort? Valuable stuff, Cap."

"Bad editing."

"I don't think the editing was the problem." Bucky props his elbow on the bar and leans his head into his hand to look at Steve sideways. God, he misses touching him. "God, I miss touching you."

Wait.

"Sorry," he hurries to say. "I don't know how the conversation got to this point, but I didn't mean it. Really, you're with someone. I understand. Think I'll go find my bunk now."

He starts to get up, but Steve's arm slips around his waist. There's only a handful of people in the bar, but he casts a quick glance around before he slides in as close as he can on a separate stool and puts his lips up to Bucky's ear. "I'm taken, but I'm not _gone_."

"I don't know what that's supposed to mean."

"I haven't gone away on a long trip. I'm not dead or anything. I'm right here. Sometimes you don't seem to realize it."

Bucky turns away.

Okay, that's fair. Maybe he does act like that sometimes. It's just ... between Steve's new woman and his new ... everything, sometimes it does feel like Steve's gone away. The funny, quirky, uppity little guy who Bucky used to fool around with turned into a big, strong, focused barrel of muscles who already has a steady partner. A real one, not just someone who'll shove a hand down his pants when no one's looking.

Bucky wishes they'd explored each other a little more, is all. They could have done more.

Steve takes him back to the barracks and puts him to bed. His memories the next day mostly consist of Steve's breath on his ear and his palm on his hip, a little of the affectionate expression on Steve's perfect face while he was pulling Bucky's blanket over him. And a little more of the catcalls they got for Steve tucking him in in the first place, but Steve was unconcerned and Bucky doesn't care. He really doesn't.

* * *

 

 

The next morning is far from the worst hangover of his life, but he feels it all the same and then some for the scant knowledge of what a fool he made of himself the night before. Granted, the details are scarce, but he remembers enough. He owes a truckload of apologies by his reckoning.

Steve doesn't say anything when they meet up for breakfast, but neither have his shoulders gone all rigid in that way of his, the one that tells Bucky he remembers and he's not happy. So he's probably fine. Bucky roughs out a mumbled _sorry_ and Steve waves him off, and that's settled. He apologizes to the guys for being kind of a killjoy on their night out, thus wasting a few precious hours of their leave. He tries to convince himself that it's settled, but he always gets this itch between his shoulder blades when he's done a lady wrong, and by evening he can't take it anymore.

Agent Carter is poring over intelligence briefs when he finds her. There's fresh ink smudged all over her fingers and the heels of her hands from where she leans against the papers. Intel that can't wait, he guesses. He probably doesn't have clearance for a single word of it, and not everything she handles directly relates to his field work, so he waits formally at the far end of the large table and keeps his eyes to himself. She knows he's there; he can tell. She finishes what she's doing, then straightens up and nods at him. She's official-looking, all clear eyes and stern brow, but when she carefully tucks back an errant strand of hair she marks up her face with grimy ink. A clear line, right by her ear.

It's such a silly thing to make him like her, a single hair tucked out of place, an inconsequential smudge marring her perfection but just serving to make her more human, more attractive. He's such a sap, he really is. He's always had trouble not liking ladies, no matter how hard he's been trying, no matter if they're no good for him, and Agent Carter here's the best. He knows it.

She starts shuffling the papers into some semblance of order, unearthing a few grainy photographs in the process; and he really tries not to see them, but he can sniff Steve out a mile away and if you blindfolded him and waved a picture of the guy under his nose, he's pretty sure he could tell you what Steve's wearing in it and what he was thinking when it was taken. It's not like she has intelligence on what he did, not like she'll chew him out over it, but for a moment his stupid brain almost tricks him into believing that she _does_ ; that it's written out in one of those reports, that one of those photos will reveal the way Steve leaned into him and how much it meant to him, a casual gesture from a friend that set a fire in his gut.

"Yes, Sergeant?"

He clears his throat and stands up impossibly straighter. "I owe you an apology. I'm sorry." And he turns around to leave. He said it. He's done.

"Wait."

He pauses.

"To what on Earth are you referring?" There's a peculiar laugh in her voice, puzzled and bordering on curious.

"Last night. I was drunk. It won't happen again."

"I didn't see you last night."

"Yeah, I was with Steve. Like I said, I won't do it again."

"Do _what_ , Sergeant? I don't have time for games. Neither, I'm sure, do you."

He shuffles his feet a little, falling out of his rigid posture. "I sort of ... I maybe hit on Steve. Just a little. Don't worry, I was just falling back on old habits. Too drunk to know better. I shouldn't drink like that anyway. It messes with my head."

He's halfway out the door before he realizes what he's said. "I mean, God, no, Steve's -- he's -- as a joke, you know, not a real -- we don't--"

He expects her to be horrified, or at least to laugh at what a fool he's making of himself, but the expression that comes to her ink-blemished face is one he hasn't seen before. It feels like a private expression and it warms something in him.

"I know."

And she could mean anything. She knows Steve's not like that, she knows he didn't mean it, she knows about their little game that doesn't really exist but could. But he can tell. She knows about _them_ ; about what they had. He can see it in her face.

She doesn't look upset.

"You know?" He hopes his voice doesn't sound as dead to her as it does to him, but he gives it another shot anyway, with more feeling. "You know?"

"One needn't be an operative to deduce such. I asked; he told. Very discretely, of course. He is a gentleman."

His head is spinning from both the breathless betrayal at Steve talking about him and the wild, passionate arousal he feels at ... well, at Steve talking about him. With _Peggy_. God, did he tell her while they were in bed? Did she want to know how he'd touched him? Part of him reproves sharply; a much larger part is lost in imagining a scene he knows he'll stick in the back of his mind for cold nights when skin mags won't do it.

He's never imagined her naked before. It's not right. But there it goes, right behind his eyes: stockings up, underwear down. No skirt. Her hair is loose, lips red and smeared, nails clenched in her palms. Mouth open. Legs spread wide, one hitched higher than the other, while Steve runs his fingers over her. He's teasing while he talks. He's telling her about the way he used to slide into Bucky's bed, how he'd mold his hips against Bucky's back and stay there until Bucky rolled over and Steve would suck kisses down his throat. That was always Bucky's favorite part, not that he'd tell anyone.

He sharply cuts off that fantasy. Christ, some apology this is: she's _right there_ , for fuck's sake, and here he is thinking thoughts like this.

Did she picture them together, though?

Fuck. Enough, Barnes. Knock it off.

Clearly she's seen his brain jamming up; her mouth is pressed into a tight line that looks more like a suppressed smirk than a grimace.

He swallows hard. "Okay, then. But that doesn't change that he's yours now. Yours for real. I don't know how much he told you, but we weren't ... It was just something that happened sometimes. It wasn't special."

"On the contrary, I actually think you're quite special."

Bucky is so taken aback that he doesn't speak.

"I don't know if you think I'm the jealous sort. I may be. I also know how to spot something that must be cherished. Protected. As do you. We have that in common, don't we?" She leans her hip into the table and gestures for him to sit down (which he does, shakily, without taking his eyes off of her). "I haven't stolen him from you. I'm also not particularly concerned that you're endeavoring to lure him from me. He is, after all, a man capable of deciding for himself his own heart, as we've seen on numerous occasions and to nerve-wracking effect."

Bucky snorts without meaning to. Yeah, they have.

She offers up a small smile and continues. "I don't wish to make him choose. His heart's not meant for one."

She means Steve's attention, his friendship. She means that she'll have the romance and not skim an inch of Steve's fraternal love from Bucky's coffers. She doesn't mean that the picture blooming in Bucky's mind is anything but silly, immature, terror-fraught wishful-thinking: that the three of them should test this strange, fragile thing between them. She means that they're both connected to Steve and they'll always share a quiet respect for one another.

"I suppose by use of my superior packing skills I could gain as much as an inch of space for just one more."

He squints in confusion. "An inch?"

"In my heart. I'm not Steve, but neither am I bereft of feeling. I could never throw you aside. You are a good man. And I would be honored to call you my friend."

Stunned, Bucky runs a hand through his hair, falling limp against his forehead out of regulation, and blows out a breath that sounds like a laugh and doesn't feel a thing like one. This is somewhere to the left of where he saw this conversation going when he walked in. "I would be honored to call you my friend, too. Not just 'cause of Steve."

"Thank you." She relaxes a fraction. "You needn't worry so."

"That obvious, huh?" He relaxes a trace, too. "I guess ... things are slipping through my fingers. Not just this. Everything's kind of ... out of control. And I'm along for the ride." A beat passes before it occurs to him that she's his superior and maybe he shouldn't be saying this to her.

"I've always found occasions of spectacular love-making quite a pick-me-up. Judging by your condition, I hope you don't find it too forward of me to suggest that you might benefit from the same."

He's really been hoping for the last few minutes that she hasn't noticed the situation in his trousers -- and it's not so far-fetched, since he was only halfway there to begin with and serious conversations have always rendered him a bit ineligible for action. It figures that she's noticed, though. And he's not going anywhere near the fact that she just told him to get laid.

He's absolutely not going anywhere near the fact that her suggestion renews his interest _and_ his imagination. It's not like she means with _her_.

"If it's a bit of solid ground you're after, I'm told I'm quite the generous partner. I know Steve is."

Maybe she does. Jesus. Her lipstick's wearing thin from how many times her tongue's darted out to wet them. Now that he's paying attention, well, she's gauging his reaction, feeling this out. Careful, but undaunted. She's poised on the edge of a question she's done just about everything but come out and ask.

"You're offering?"

"There's no need to offer what's been available all along."

The admission rattles through his brain like a shockwave, knocking his thoughts askew. He collects himself quickly, but she has to have seen. He swallows a couple of times, throat dry. "That doesn't sound like solid ground. That sounds like an earthquake."

"Thank you for your vote of confidence. What I meant is that I trust you. If it's a moment of control you're looking for..." She pushes herself off of the table. When she walks over to him, her eyes are downcast in a deliberate way, even if the rest of her is deceptively easy and loose. She leans in close to his face and waits. "Steel your nerve." This close, her lips are mesmerizing when she speaks.

He looks into her eyes and wipes the ink from her face with his thumb. It rubs in a little, but most of it comes off. She notices it as he pulls his thumb away and she smiles.

"Was that a yes?"

"You've talked to Steve about this?" Bucky can't help but find the idea of Steve discussing this with her too bizarre to contemplate for long -- Steve's open to a lot of surprising things, but he's not great at talking about the things he wants. Maybe because he never expects to have them.

"Yes."

"You and Steve?"

"Yes."

"And me?"

"Indeed."

" _That's_ what you two have been talking about when I'm not around?"

"Does this offend you? I didn't take you as the matronly sort."

Point to Carter. "No. No, I'm not offended. A little confused, very turned on, but not offended."

"Just this once, I'll confess that I feel much the same: slightly confused, very aroused. Very willing to give it a try."

"And Steve?"

"Steve wants the world. He dreams big."

"That's such a pretty way of saying he wants his best girl and his best friend naked and waiting in his bed."

"But it's rather a pretty picture, too, isn't it?"

And with that, he smiles, they shake hands, and he goes off to find Steve and figure out just what the hell they think they're doing here.

* * *

 

  
They think it over for a couple of days until their leave is almost up. They have to be back in the field by Saturday and it's going to take all of Friday to get where they're going. Tonight's their last night unencumbered by war.

They talk it over some, too, and all seem to decide that Bucky pulling everyone's strings will make for one hell of a night.

They don't go out, not even for a drink. Agent Carter borrows a room from a well-off friend who's fled to the countryside and left his house in her care, with explicit and slightly baiting instructions that should she feel so inclined, she is to do whomever she wishes within its walls and leave the upholstery in good repair.

She didn't think she would when she agreed to the somewhat mocking conditions, but she says there is a sense of satisfaction in doing just that.

She's waiting at the place when he and Steve get there. Even though they're not going anywhere, she's gone all out: a beautiful red skirt and blouse, lips painted to match, hair done up in what looks like a complicated 'do (but what Bucky is pretty sure he could replicate, having done his sisters' hair for years with no complaints). She's even got on real stockings tonight.

He's never had a woman dress up just for him to take it all off before.

He and Steve are a mite under-dressed here, but she clearly doesn't care a whit. She smiles at them when they enter, kisses Steve with feeling, and lays her palm over the back of Bucky's neck just to rub at the base of his skull with the tips of her fingers. As greetings go, it's nice.

They talk a little more, idle chat that does little to ease the tension wiring Bucky's spine. Being here is surreal: this slightly musty room hastily dusted and made serviceable, Agent Carter in her best with no intention of keeping it on for very much longer, Steve strangely relaxed for a man about to make time with his girlfriend with his best friend watching (and this from a man who's up to this point been extremely discrete about his relationship with the woman, not wanting to damage her career or make a joke out of his), and here Bucky sits. There's sweat gathering at the small of his back and between his shoulder blades, making his shirt stick, but he knows he doesn't look it. He's keeping it cool. He just can't believe this is happening.

The talk peters off when Peggy stands and pulls the pins from her hair. It's not an apt metaphor to compare it to pulling the pin from a grenade, but it feels like the right one: whatever happens after this, the landscape will be different.

The shoes and stockings come away first. She's not going to risk damaging her one real pair. It's eminently practical the way she carefully unhooks them from the garters, rolls them down, and puts them aside.

Practical has never been a real turn-on for him before, but he's discovered a lot of new things about himself lately, and her straightforward manner about it, the way when she's done she lifts her chin toward them in clear-eyed expectation, is enough to get things started for him.

Of course, it helps that with the door locked she looks at Steve as one might stare at a glass of ice water on a sweltering day. It's not surprising that he's turned on by people being turned on by Steve. Steve appreciation, as a matter of fact, has been one of his most enduring interests since before he realized that maybe his dick would like to play along, too.

Steve stands and runs his palms down her arms, hampering her effort to unbutton the blouse but not really slowing her very much, and Bucky laughs a little to himself at the thought: Steve can't really slow her down at all unless she wants him to. He waits until she's shrugged it from her shoulders and handed it to Steve to fold neatly and place safely to the side. There she stands in bra and skirt, hair down and shoes off, and they're dressed.

His turn, he supposes. The lady did say that he should feel free to tell them what he wanted.

Bucky saunters forward. Smiling almost too kindly, he reaches into his pocket, and from it he removes a steel penny. It's been rattling around his pocket uselessly for weeks and now it's got a job.

He slips it delicately under the strip of her bra between her breasts, eyes on hers.

"Flip for it," he says. It doesn't sound as authoritative in his head as it does when it rumbles from his chest, and though he's surprised he doesn't let it show. He likes the effect it has on Peggy and Steve, dull flushes in endearing places and eyes gone dark in pleasing ways.

"For what exactly?" she murmurs.

"For who's on top. Steve's heads 'cause Lord knows he could use one."

Steve looks like he's got a smart comeback, but he pauses, lips quirked to the side, and reaches for the coin instead. It's a pretty loaded thing to say, could carry more than one meaning, but they're not questioning him and, despite his griping about their brashness, he loves that about them, too. They're people who question fundamentally, every minute of every day, aloud and accountable to others and in the privacy of their own heads. They poke and prod and plot and they ask, they demand.

But him? Him, they trust. And it's in a comfortable, electrically-charged silence that Steve plucks the coin from Peggy's bra, fingertips sliding across her clavicle, and plants a grifter's kiss on the metal before dropping it into her waiting, outstretched palm.

It flashes in the light when she snaps her palm closed, disappears before it resurfaces rolling across her knuckles, showy and skillful. She flips it into the air and then tugs Steve by the shoulders into a thorough kiss. The penny lands on the floor by Bucky's foot with a hard ping.

He waits a moment before he looks down to see who's won. Steve's hands, as usual, are already all tangled in Peggy's hair, one cradling the back of her head and massaging her scalp, sincerely gentle, and the other clasping the ends in a fist with just the slightest suggestive tug. Peggy's smearing lipstick across his jaw, her fingers curled into his chest to scratch her nails against his skin. Bucky sits down heavily in the chair behind him and spreads his legs a little.

Peggy pulls away first, tilting her head down to lean her face into his neck and just breathe. "You taste like metal."

"Could be worse," Steve says. "Could be copper."

Bucky snorts. "Yeah, war shortages have always been a boon to my love life. You mention that in the war bonds tour, Cap?"

"Didn't fit into the script. We ran a tight show." He's idly winding Peggy's hair around his fingers, pulling her back to look up at him.

Peggy's eyes close and her chest rises and falls in deep, gentle motions. She leans into Steve a little more.

First things first, though: it's tails.

Bucky stands and walks around them so he's behind Peggy. He slips his arms around her waist and sways a little, mouth to her neck to breathe moist, warm air into her pulse, tongue flicking out just to taste the salt and soap. It's almost a dance, as if there's music and everything. He pulls her hip, a suggestion more than a demand, and she turns to face him, leaving one palm reaching behind her to stay in contact with Steve. Bucky understands the impulse: if he had his way, he'd never stop touching Steve, either; never relinquish the reassurance. That's not something you say, though.

He wraps her arms around his waist and kisses her forehead. "You're up, Agent. Make him yours."

Her eyes soften and her lips do a funny thing where they purse but she doesn't look annoyed. It's more affectionate, really. "I think you may call me Peggy, Sergeant." There's a bit of a bite to it, a gentle tease and a question at once.

He shakes his head. His hands slip down to cup her rear, still sheathed in her coarse wool skirt. "Peggy. There's two kinds of women in the world who call me James. One is mothers, and I got one of those. The other is women who've had my head between their thighs."

He leaves it in the air between them.

"James."

He bites his lips, getting them wet. When he drops straight down to the floor, he lands with a soft thud and a hitch of breath in his ears. He's been waiting a long time, it feels like (definitely so when he quickly adjusts himself), so he doesn't mess around. He lifts Peggy's skirt straight up and lets it fall over his head just to be cheeky. One hand goes to the place where her legs meet, stroking with light pressure at the damp spot on her underwear, and as she gasps he grasps her ankle and positions it over his shoulder. Her heel scrapes at his back. He knows she won't fall, knows she's too graceful and they've only just begun, but he swears he _feels_ Steve's presence draw up closer behind her anyway and he can feel it when her body relaxes back into him. Steve's the wall against which they're joined, propping her up and anchoring them both. A glance down reveals Steve's heavy boots on either side of Peggy's planted foot.

He shuffles forward just enough to rest his knee on Steve's toes. The motion arches Peggy's back. He waits to see if she's okay with it, but her small groan doesn't sound unhappy, just impatient, so he takes it as assent. He slides his palm down the inside of her strong thigh, then kisses his way back up and jerks her underwear aside with his thumb. He curls his fingernails into his palm roughly for a moment, almost sure there are no sharp edges but checking just in case; they're smooth and safe and that's as long as it takes for him to skate them across her sex and make her jump.

Steve hisses faintly and then laughs. There's a sucking sound coming from up above and Bucky's guess is that Peggy's working her magic on his neck and maybe worked it a little hard when Bucky touched her. Steve's good for a few bites, though -- he maybe likes them a little more than Bucky would prefer. But if she'll indulge him, and she's on top tonight, then who's Bucky to intervene?

He likes kissing the bruises better, anyway, soothing them with lips and tongue the way he soothes aching muscles with his kneading thumbs. He puts those to work first, spreading her open and stroking up and down, up and down, in ever-narrowing concentric circles working their way in. As he gets to her center, he slides them back out again, and the moment she makes a displeased noise low in her throat is when he tongues her deep and sloppy.

Her whole body tenses up in a sharp jolt, a shaky sigh passing her lips. "Better."

He leaves an open-mouthed kiss and then lets his tongue slip out again to trace her, to massage, with more precision. His lips drag along after it, and the first time he makes her shudder, he zeroes in on that spot and does it again, and again, until her heel is rubbing fire into his shoulder blade. He backs off and starts over from the beginning.

She's making the prettiest sounds, tracing the top of his spine with her foot when she's not moving it like crazy, and with his nose buried in her pubic hair and her sex pressed between his sucking lips, he's struck by how damn brave she is.

It's not that he's never seen the softness in her before. He's good at that, seeing the gaps where women's shields don't meet, fault lines that pull apart and reveal tenderness and compassion and strength that's often deeply hidden. He's seen it in Peggy, too. He just can't help feeling a little off-center while Peggy's being taken apart between him and his best friend, vulnerable in a way that she clearly enjoys and allowing them to care for her. There's nothing submissive in anything she's done tonight, or anything she's done before, but her walls are all the way down and she's not bothered by letting Steve prop her up and panting softly into his neck, body stretched out sinuously. They're not using her; on the contrary, she's taking what she wants completely without shame.

By day, she's in charge and no-nonsense and an unflinching authority, and by Steve's accounts she's often that way in the night (and don't think Bucky doesn't know how Steve feels about being shoved around and stared into submission by beautiful dames with a leash 'round his throat -- metaphorically, of course. Probably). She's got just as much right as anyone to lay back and enjoy the ride when it suits her. She works hard.

He's just touched that she's sharing this side of herself with him. He's flattered as hell, but mostly it just makes it seem possible that the little flecks of himself that had been peeled away in Zola's lab may not be gone forever after all. That a woman this strong and capable, this guarded and whip-smart, will still look at him with fresh eyes and see something worth trusting.

The skirt slides up and away from him, bursting his little cocoon of heat and musk that he's sharing with just her. The room is all superimposed shadows in the sudden light until his eyes adjust. Peggy's hand comes down to stroke the nape of his neck. Steve's got the skirt crumpled in one of his big hands, arm slung across her waist securely. The other cups her breast; at some point he's gotten her bra unhooked and slid one strap down her shoulder, and there's something especially debauched about it, hanging half off of her, cinched up under one breast and pushed snugly under the other to leave it bare. It can't be good for the thing. It's a silly thought at a time like this, but you should always treat a lady's underwear with respect.

He flicks his gaze from Steve to Peggy's chest, a little jerk of his chin, and Steve grins. He slides the strap down the rest of the way 'til it clears her arm, and then it falls away to hang limply from her other shoulder, no chance of pulling it the rest of the way off with her arm hooked back behind Steve's neck. Steve's thumb rubs little circles on her sternum between her heavy breasts, fingers wrapped over the swell of her ribcage.

Bucky doesn't draw like Steve, but he's got a damn good mind for remembering beautiful things, and this one's burned into his brain, shooting sparks down his spine, and he can knock off the poetry long enough to say the thing that it's really doing: "You two don't know how hard you're making me."

Peggy's fingers leave his neck. He wants them back, but what she does with them next might be even better. She changes her grip on Steve, reaches back to leverage her way, and then pulls herself upright just enough to lift her toes from the ground and very gently place them against Bucky's crotch.

"That does feel awfully hard, James. Are we going to do anything about it?"

God, but he admires the hell out of a woman who can speak so calmly when she's slung half-naked between her two men. You'd think she's asking for a report that needs filing. There's sweat on her face and a pretty flush high on her cheeks and that's the only giveaway that there's been anything funny going on.

He smiles and it's absolutely genuine. "I think I can wait." He is, after all, the captain for tonight, and that makes him last in line.

She drags her toes up the seam of his pants, all promise and no teasing, just hard pressure, before she pulls it away and sets her foot down on the floor again. She's graceful and strong, and Steve doesn't sway once being climbed all over like a jungle-gym. She sinks back into his hold, hikes her leg further up over Bucky's back, and slips her hand back into his hair, higher and higher until she's stroking his temples.

He thinks back to their conversation earlier. She may not, by her own admission, be the best at expressing herself, but she's getting her point across just fine now, from the tentatively affectionate way she smooths his hair back to the light, challenging scratch of her nails.

He plants a kiss on her leg before he eases it off of his shoulder, mindful that it's been there for some time now and holding her steady. He plucks her underwear down her legs and her skirt next and she steps out of them herself, leaving a puddle of feminine mystique on the floor. She shakes out her leg a little, almost playfully, and then turns around to palm Steve's chest and nudge him backward until his shoulders hit the wall, bra finally falling to the floor as she lowers her arm. His legs spread a little automatically, seemingly without his notice.

"It's maddening, you know, cool air at your front and hard, warm muscle at your back, and you can't touch." She's touching now. She's cupping the muscles of his chest the way he'd cupped her breasts, almost mimicking, eyes locked on his. If Steve's a little put-off by the implication, it doesn't show.

"I'm a self-taught expert on looking but not touching," Steve says. His voice almost grates out of his throat, it's so low.

Bucky clears his throat. Their heads turn in his direction. Steve sneaks his hand over Peggy's hip while she's craning her neck back; her fingers wander up to the lines of his throat. What he wants is to press the heel of his hand to his dick and watch them go, see how in sync they are with one another and how beautiful they are together, how they play off of each other and push each other higher. They're enthralled, snared, and he hates to admit it, but it's just like one of those pulp romance novels he used to read between stacks of science fiction adventures, the kind that he laughed at even while he jerked off to them. He's no sap, but he's a romantic, and his life kind of reads like a badly-written fiction these days anyway. Steve as a desirable, admirable protagonist is just God fixing a typo. And Peggy ...

Peggy's not like a dime-novel dame. He'd punch out anyone who implied otherwise, but she'd get in her shot first, and that's difference number one. Still, the passion they inspire in one another isn't like the comfort and familiarity that he shares with Steve. Bucky encourages; Peggy challenges. Sometimes they switch. But Bucky will come up on his line and draw back, desperate to save Steve from himself, and Bucky has this lingering fear that Peggy's nobility will have her just as caught up in Steve's antics as he is, and she'll take that one step farther. She'll cross the line that he just brushes up against, hand in sweaty hand with Steve.

That's maybe difference number two, and it's probably the answer for the hand she keeps at Steve's throat, the suggestion alone keeping Steve in place. She'd never hurt him, and they all know it, and yet.

Her fingers make little indents in his skin and Steve's eyes slip closed.

"I believe you required our attention, James?" She's still poised as ever, as if she's not down to her skin with slick and spit glistening on her thighs that Bucky can see all the way from across the room -- his spit, even, not Steve's. Too poised, which means that Bucky isn't done.

Isn't nearly done.

"I was thinking we wore you out a little," he says, rising to his feet. "It's ungentlemanly."

She takes the little dig in stride, knowing how it's meant. "Are you having trouble keeping up?"

"Only when you smile like that. Makes my head rush."

"That's almost sweet." She dutifully waits for the other shoe to drop. He knows she isn't looking for sweet, so he doesn't disappoint.

"From all that blood pooling south," he says, quoting directly from one of the worst dirty books he ever sneaked into his room, but he thinks she'll appreciate it, how bad a line it is. She's got a sly way about her and the filthiest joke he ever heard came from her lips. She hasn't got him fooled.

Steve groans, spell finally broken. "Oh, Buck. _Picked from the Vine_? Really?" He's laughing already, evaporating the heat and tension building in the room -- which is really a shame, 'cause it was the good kind of tension, the kind that coils in your gut and springs.

"I didn't know you remembered that," Bucky mumbles. When Steve used to get sick Bucky would read to him, and sometimes he'd grab the wrong book and that's what they'd have; it hardly mattered to Steve what he was reading, just that a friendly voice was saying it.

"First time I got hard was watching you move your lips reading that stupid book, the part where they make love in the field and then fall into the river together." He bites his lip. "I could quote that damn thing. See the words across the back of my eyelids."

"Was it the love-making or the near-death experience that got you going?"

Steve doesn't answer. He slides his big hand down Peggy's back until it rests below her ass, slides it further in until surely his fingertips are wet. Her shudder is small but undeniable.

"You did real good," he says instead. "Staying like that for so long. Your legs must be sore."

Her breath changes and Bucky can just barely see Steve's fingers curling into her from behind, just a glimpse of his hand moving.

Bucky wants to lay her out and lick her open 'til her long legs shake and bruise his sides. He tilts his head at her, glances at the couch, and she must see something of it on his face because she steps away from Steve and arranges herself on the couch with one leg over the back and one on the floor, pillows tilting her pelvis up and her shoulders down . She sighs as her back relaxes and sinks deeper into the cushions.

He and Steve are still at least mostly clothed, he realizes. That's not really right. He ghosts his fingers over Steve's dick, knowing that Steve hasn't touched it yet and neither have they, and flicks at Steve's belt. It's tempting to crook a finger through his belt loop and tug him to where Bucky wants him, but part of the idea for tonight is that the pull goes without saying. Tonight, they are his to command, his to touch, and his to play like instruments without laying a finger on them.

Steve lowers his eyes in a way that would be coy on a girl, hands automatically opening his belt and unbuttoning his fly and not stopping until he's stripped all the way to his boots, which come off before he can shove everything away. He's well-practiced at stripping quickly. So's Bucky, but he takes his time tonight, the pads of his fingers lingering on buttons and thick fabric and pushing it around more than taking it off.

When Steve's buck-ass naked and looking expectantly at him, Bucky points to Peggy and follows slowly as Steve settles into place leaning over the low arm of the couch, kneeling on the floor. He pulls her a couple of inches closer.

"Whatever she wants," Bucky says. "But I may have suggestions."

Steve is a quick study and he knows what she likes, but he relies on his hands too much so that he can keep leaning back to look at her, and that's not surprising, but it also gives Bucky an idea. He feels a triumphant little surge -- he'd call it affection, but he's trying not to tonight -- when he takes Steve's hands in his and encounters no token protest or habitual resistance, and pulls them away, folds them gently wrist-over-wrist at the small of Steve's back and keeps them pressed there. Steve's hand are warm and sticky under his and they leave his skin wet where they touch. He steps in closer, bracketing Steve's body with his own.

It's stupid, but he swears he can feel the proximity thrumming through him like an engine right around his groin. So of course he gets closer. He sidles in until his legs are spread far enough that he's standing low over Steve's back, caging him in with his thighs against his ribs. Heat seeps through slowly and reminds him that he's still the only one here wearing pants.

It seems a little short-sighted now.

Steve lets out a surprisingly breathy little sound that could be a moan and that snaps Bucky back. He squeezes a little, taps out a heartbeat on the bones of Steve's wrist, still sharp when the rest of him is protected by slabs of muscle for the first time in his life. They're bigger now, harder for Bucky to wrap his fingers all the way around, but there's still something about them that reminds him of Steve -- and isn't that just queer as hell, when he knows for a fact that if he'd tried this with Steve without a woman around then Steve would've bucked him off, playing it up just for the fight of it or else genuinely annoyed depending on the day.

He squeezes again and Steve's answer is to rock his hips. His cock's got to be hitting air, but with Bucky warm behind him and his face in between Peggy's legs, apparently he's doing fine.

Still, Bucky's feeling generous. He tries to shuffle around as inconspicuously as possible as he backs up, slips his leg between Steve's and presses very carefully, very slowly, up, up, until the weight of Steve's sac rests on the toe of his shoe and Steve keens for all he's worth, spine arching. He stops working Peggy to drop his head down and pant for a few seconds.

"Quite all right down there, boys?"

_There we go._

She's breathing hard, voice tight and shoulders lazy and loose. Seems Steve really picks up the pace when he can't fool around with his hands.

"Nah. Just letting Steve know I was thinking of him." His other hand cards through Steve's hair for a second before he guides Steve back into place; he doesn't shove him down, but with his fingers massaging the back of Steve's neck with gentle pressure, he definitely provides incentive.

From this new angle Bucky admires the view. Steve's face is wet from the end of his nose to the jut of his chin, and there's a certain thrill from up here that's completely unlike looking down and seeing someone working him over. It's almost like he's the one working her, but with a current of anticipation running through him, like back in basic when he'd watch some of the slower recruits reassembling their rifles and itch to yank the parts out of their hands to do it himself.  
   
Well, he has sort of done that much already.

His foot creeps higher until Steve's cock is held back against his stomach and he has something to move against.

Bucky spares a momentary thought for how the three of them must look: Peggy laid out on her back with her legs strewn wide and her pelvis pushed up; Steve half bent over with his chest pressed to the couch and the top of his head bobbing up and down; Bucky standing on one leg and the other awkwardly reaching under Steve's massive frame, back hunched to hold Steve's wrists with one hand and the other stretched up to his neck.

It's ridiculous. He'll laugh about it later, though, when he tends to his sore muscles and the protest developing in his spine. Right now it feels amazing, standing over these two.

Peggy's got her hands in her hair, clutching it into a wild mess. Her eyes are squeezed shut, abdominal muscles squeezed tight while her hips swing in confined little circles, and when she goes to squeeze her legs together, too, almost pulling away from the sensation, Bucky releases Steve's wrists and neck and leans over him to hold her open. He holds the insides of her knees and feels the tremor running through them.

"You can do it, darling," he breathes. "You can take it. You're so good. Let go, c'mon. Let it wash over you. You look so good. You're amazing."

One hand has trailed down from her hair to smear the remnants of her lipstick over her bitten lips, sticky red wax all over one side of her face where her fingers dragged. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, but they're shiny already and he wonders if it's maybe for him when she peeks one eye at him, almost like a cat. He's damn sure it's for him when her fingers slip into her open mouth and just stay there, resting on her tongue in a way that shouldn't look like an invitation, but does, and maybe they're past pretenses at this point, but he's never liked to presume that about a woman. They don't all abide by it.

Just because a woman has two fellas doesn't mean she's open to everything.

"So damn strong," he says, voice gone hoarse and he's not sure why. He's babbling in a way that he usually doesn't until much later. "Don't have to be strong all the time. C'mon, do it for us. Fuck, you earned it." He reaches for her wrist and carefully guides it down until she twists her fingers through Steve's hair and nudges him decisively where she wants him. Her other hand comes down to rub at herself, but without looking she bumps into Steve's lapping tongue more often than not and he sucks her fingers into his mouth playfully, distractingly, eyes bright and lively when he looks up at Bucky upside-down. He nips the pads of her fingers with his teeth.

Bucky rolls his eyes; Steve's having his fun, but wait 'til Peggy gets her proper turn with him. He leans all the way down over Steve and kisses Steve's tongue because the angle makes kissing him properly awkward and, hell, it was just sticking out anyway. Then he slides three fingers into Peggy and curls them hard, once, twice, and again, his other hand still holding her knee up and out. She groans low enough that he feels it in his chest. Steve gets back to business and hastily leans in to suck on that spot that made her heel kick out and after just a couple more strokes she's done for, steel in her spine and air trapped in her lungs before her muscles and her breath release all at once. She sinks back down into the couch with her eyes closed and her chest rising and falling like a bellows.

Steve busies himself kissing her lower belly. Bucky eases his fingers out of her and grabs a handkerchief from his pocket for her face.

She arches her brow at him when he hands it to her. "No wish to tidy up Steve's sticky visage?"

"I can lick that offa him. Lipstick tastes terrible." The implication that she, however, does not, is plain enough that, for the first time tonight, she blushes. It's so slight that it almost doesn't even count, but everyone has their insecurities, even beautiful, wonderful women (and boneheaded skinny men), and he's glad that he could accidentally put one to rest for her.

"You mean you haven't acquired a taste for it yet?" she jokes, pushing herself up to her elbows and dragging her ass back until she can sit some semblance of properly.

"Rumors of my experience may be slightly exaggerated," he admits, but it's not like he's the one who ever lied about it. People just assumed because he was friendly and discrete. He just had the ability to meet someone and make them feel like they'd known him for years and set them at ease, a comforting presence and a good guy to share a laugh or two with and most of the time that was all. If the laughs happened to occur in bed then he kept that to himself like any decent person should. Keep neither confirming nor denying long enough and eventually people start to get their own ideas.

Except with Steve. Not that Steve knew all the details, but Steve got every part of him, back in those days, and he'd recounted more than one story to get Steve hot under the collar. He'd given up the pretense that he was reading from the books years ago. He just withheld names.

"'Sides," he says, mostly bluster just to clear his head, "we're just gonna mess him up again anyway, aren't we?"

"And who's to say I don't wish to be messed up a little myself?"

Bucky opens his mouth to form a comeback -- he hasn't quite got one yet, but he's sure his brain will provide in the end -- when Peggy laughs suddenly, a low bubbling sound that satisfies like warm dripping wax. (Not that Bucky would know about that. Much.) Bucky gives her a small, curious smile, until he looks down and sees Steve resting his forehead on her leg and breathing deeply, eyes closed. It's a little sweet and a little funny, half tired puppy pleased with himself and half bowed Adonis desperately waiting to get off.

When he looks further, Steve's hand are still at his back, still crossed where Bucky left them. Bucky's been feeling pretty damn good this whole time, but it's nothing compared to the gut-punch of arousal that strikes him when he realizes that Steve hasn't moved without his permission, has stayed exactly where Bucky wanted without even being told.

He can't say that's ever happened before in the history of their entire relationship and he's almost dizzy with pride and attraction. Whether it'll ever happen again or Steve's just caught up in the moment remains to be seen.

He almost throws off his pants right there, but when he gives it a moment's thought, he decides to see this through. Steve is trusting him, listening to him, and he wants to be good at this. He can be good for them. He's leading them here, and they can follow him. The desire to earn this whole night skyrockets up to lodge somewhere in his throat and the polite cough he allows himself does nothing to relieve the tension.

Bucky's not sure how well his personal tactical skills will hold out once they've turned their attention on him together. Best to wait.

He closes his eyes and bites the tip of his tongue, just a quick sting to quench the ache so he can think.

"I can see your brain overheating from over here," Peggy says. "Normally it's Steve whose thoughts so transparently run a mile a minute."

"You saying I'm not a thinker?"

He cracks an eye just as she smiles radiantly, if briefly, and pushes her sweaty hair away from the back of her neck, fingers combing through little snarls. "I'm saying you hide it well under your charm."

He'd like to tell her that she's not the only one being laid bare tonight, but there's honesty and then there's whatever that is, so she'll just have to figure it out for herself. She probably already has; maybe that was the emotional equivalent of letting him know that his fly is open and giving him an out.

Fuck, leave it open. Just because he can't talk about it doesn't mean he can't be a window tonight.

At some point during this interlude Bucky had put his foot back down and left Steve without a point of contact to him. His hands stay where they belong, but his knees shift in the rug and his ass is starting to creep back toward Bucky.

Bucky can take a hint.

"Think Steve's been good, Peggy?"

She sits up to bring her knees under her body and then leans down to capture Steve's mouth in a surging kiss, clearly getting her second wind. Bucky kneels down on the floor and presses his chest to Steve's back. At this height Steve's fingers are trapped between the small of his back and Bucky's confined dick and it feels damn wonderful to finally be touched, even without intent.

Not that Steve doesn't notice and take advantage of that fact.

Bucky kisses the back of Steve's neck, across his shoulders, around to the jut of his collarbones, until Peggy lets him up for air and Bucky steals in to kiss her next. She deepens it first. Below them Steve laughs incredulously.

"Hush, you," Bucky admonishes, but he doesn't really mean it, and he regretfully backs up a little.

Peggy stands from the couch and tips Steve's chin all the way up. It must be real pretty, towering over that beautiful, intense, frustrating man as he looks up at you adoring and patient. It's not a look that he's fixed on Bucky, but it doesn't make him jealous. He's getting the hang of this sharing thing. He can't say that knowing she's had both of them on their knees for her tonight doesn't make him twitch in his pants in a way that he can't explain, so he doesn't worry about it. He wonders what she saw when she looked down at him; of course, he was hidden for most of that.

Bucky gets to his feet.

"Are you sure we can't tempt you just yet, James?" She looks pointedly at his increasingly absurd attire.

They're naked and sweaty and disheveled and next to them he's entirely out of place -- or he could be, if he didn't know down to his bones that this is exactly where he should be.

"I do rather like Steve with his mouth busy," she continues. "Of course, you made a similar impression."

He strips off his shirt and his belt and throws them aside, but that's it. "You can take it from here. Show me how you handle him."

Her eyes soften for a moment before she grabs some pillows off of the couch and arranges them on the floor behind Steve. Then she gently but firmly presses his shoulders back until he's supine. His knees fall to either side and his arms stretch out all the way in a straight line. Bucky's come to enjoy the moments when Steve tries to take up as much space as possible; they happen so rarely, and only when he stops thinking about it.

She straddles Steve's chest and leans over him to rest her palms lightly on his hipbones. When she bends forward, it pushes her ass out toward Steve's face and reveals her still-swollen sex. Steve curls one arm back in to palm a cheek, thumb grazing up and down the center. Every few strokes it dips down farther very briefly. It's a nice view, heart-shaped and round and lovely, but it's his duty as Steve's friend to catch what Steve's missing, so he goes around to her front. Her breasts sway in pendulous arcs and her eyes have gone dark and focused.

It's a very nice view, too.

"It seems my mouth's gone rather dry," she says. Her eyes are locked on Bucky's. "Help a fellow soldier out, James?"

Whether she's referring to herself or Steve, he's not sure, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. What he does know is that he's got to hand it to her: she's winning.

He's trying not to laugh when he kisses her, so she has to pry his lips apart with her tongue -- which feels plenty wet to him -- but she gets him to open up and he laves at her mouth deeply, less concerned with technique and more with trying to keep himself from smiling so wide. This should be filthy, should be raunchy, but it's all of those things and more: it's playful and funny and fun. The intensity in the room ratchets down a notch or two and it feels like friends having a laugh over a beer.

Or over your best guy's dick. Different strokes.

They break apart when Peggy squawks indignantly.

Not to be loomed over and forgotten once more, Steve has clearly made his presence known somehow. Peggy reaches back and pinches his nipple. She must know, like he does, that Steve doesn't respond well to punishment; he has the tendency to take it as a compliment. Of course Steve moans, the lunatic. Bucky holds up a finger for Peggy's attention, a "one moment, I'll handle this" type of gesture, and her nose crinkles up with the effort not to snort out a laugh.

There's a heavy glass on the table behind him and he grabs it silently. The air feels warm, so warm, but it's a heady illusion because the glass is damn cold in his hand.

He imagines it's pretty fuckin' cold when he trails it up Steve's inner thigh.

Steve's swearing has always been colorful and impressive when he's truly motivated, more so than Bucky's more frequent but run-of-the-mill vulgarity, and Bucky would expect nothing but the finest in Rogers-brand profanity. He's not disappointed.

"Steve," he coos, "it's been a few years since I heard the dog one."

"Really, Captain," Peggy teases, "what would your countrymen think?"

"Probably that their testicles just got whiplash, too." He settles back into place and gets comfortable again.

"I didn't touch your stones, pal," Bucky protests.

"But you ought to."

Bucky blinks.

It was Peggy's suggestion.

It's one thing for a woman to be comfortable with two men, to not be fazed by the sight of them together even as relatively tame as they've been tonight. It's a different league to actively tempt them toward each other and outright order them around.

"Thank you," Steve says, sounding awfully satisfied for a guy who's still stiff as a pipe.

Without preamble, Bucky reaches for Steve's poor offended balls, right at the dip between them, near the base of his length, and presses in with his thumb. Steve's not really a talker in bed and he can be kind of quiet, too (through habit or through temperament could be anyone's guess), but he's revved up pretty good now. Most of the sound is in the way his breath changes, speeds up and gets heavier, sighing and holding, with an occasional groan that slips through and it's music to Bucky's ears.

Bucky looks up to make a light joke at Steve's expense, pure affection, when he sees Peggy's face. She's watching him the way he's pretty sure he was watching her with Steve earlier. She's enjoying the rapport he has with Steve; she likes seeing someone make him happy, be good to him.

If that was all they had in common and nothing else, it would be enough. They're Steve's two biggest fans and they melt inside when someone pays him the right attention. It's ridiculous.

It's a shame Bucky wasted so much time being unsure about her. Bucky's never had a partner in crime in that area before.

She sees him looking and realizes she's been caught. The corner of her mouth quirks up just a fraction, and then she reaches down for his hand. They work Steve together for a while, and it's almost funny how it feels like the romantic thing for them to share. What they have in the slowly closing gap between them is the man under them. Instead of reaching for her hand to stroke her knuckles softly after a candlelit dinner, he feathers the pads of his fingers over her wrist when they draw closer on the down stroke. Instead of flowers, instead of love notes, they have this warm body to tease and soothe and share.

It's not bad, as hobbies go. Some fellas collect stamps; he and Peggy collect all the best ways to drive Steve into a frenzy or put his head right, and they trade them freely. Steve's kind of a handful for just one guy. He's not really sure what they are to each other, but life is crazy and they threw conventional out the window a ways back, so to hell with it.

Turns out Steve can come a couple of times before he gives out, and Bucky's so moved by the revelations he's just shaken loose that he's ready to just knock out an orgasm for Steve and cruise the rest of the night, but Peggy's apparently got other plans.

"Wait," she says, stilling his hand. Steve's just about done and he chokes out a disbelieving laugh when they stop.

"This isn't happening," he croaks. "You two are colluding together. You're trying to kill me. I've made a terrible mistake."

"Don't feel too sorry for yourself now." She twists to the side so she can reach for Steve's fallen pants and paw around in the pockets. "You've been incriminating yourself with my backside for the past ten minutes."

"In his defense," Bucky chimes in, "it's a very nice backside, and it's been right there the whole time. I think he's been pretty well-behaved."

Peggy snorts. She extracts a small tub of K-Y and a couple of condoms, and Bucky's impressed all over again by how prepared she came when he's spent most of the night just wrapping his head around the three of them. Sure, they were in Steve's pocket, but she knew they were there.

And she reached for them first.

Bucky's expecting her to slip a rubber onto Steve and climb aboard finally. He chokes on his own spit when she rolls it onto a couple of her fingers instead and coats them neatly with lube.

"Thought about this much?" he rasps out.

"Nightly," she replies smartly. "For the past week. Soaked sheets every morning."

He flexes his hands a few times, eyes wide. _Jesus_ , he thinks.

"Jesus," he says. "Did you know we'd end up in bed together, too?"

"I had hoped."

Unbelievable. She's flirting with him while she's got two fingers playing Steve's asshole like an instrument, and it's clear that they've done this before, the way she gets right to it and doesn't wait very long before edging in just a fraction.

"Unfortunately my view is a touch obstructed by this lovely male specimen." She bobs Steve's dick with her other hand, eyeing it appreciatively. "Would you mind if I joined you?"

He offers her his hand for her to lever herself up and she swings her leg back over Steve -- on shakier legs than he'd have thought, no less -- to lay on her stomach next to Bucky and get back to what she was doing. Bucky can see up Steve's body now, from his twitching abdominal muscles to the teeth he's sunk into his lower lip.

Still crouched, Bucky rubs Steve's thighs, smooths his thumbs across the jut of his hips, alternates sucking and open-mouthed kisses across his lower half without really getting anywhere near where Steve wants him. It's Peggy's show, after all.

Come to think of it, when Bucky told her that she was in charge, this isn't how he saw the night going.

It might be better.

Bucky's still lavishing Steve with attention and murmuring warm, simple things into his skin by the time he looks down again. Peggy's worked two fingers into him already and she's doing some kind of internal metacarpal gymnastics; he and Steve had never done this a lot, but he's always been awfully tight, sometimes unpleasantly so, and he wonders how often they've been practicing this. How often they could have possibly found the privacy, even. How many times had Steve come back from meeting with Peggy -- for official business or otherwise -- having been freshly fucked?

She slows when she goes for a third. Steve's fingers come up to interlace over his face and stay there, hiding him from them or countering the sensation anyone's guess.

Bucky can't take it any more. "Any room left for an old friend?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

Steve's whole body ripples in a laugh, tight and reedy. "Glad I could be of service," he pants. "You two are perfect for each other. You're menaces."

Bucky's seen him do flips off of moving trucks, hit the ground running, and engage hostiles without getting too winded. Yet here he is, completely wound up, looking like he has to remind himself to breathe.

Her fingers are average-sized for a woman, probably not too hard to take for a guy who's apparently been practicing, but between three of them and one of his, Steve hisses. It only takes a bit of finagling to slip his finger into the rubber with hers, and if it's a little bizarre, he gets over it.

"You're really bonding, aren't you?" Steve asks. He wriggles his hips down a little, bending his knees more to get his feet flat on the floor. "I'm actually okay with this."

"This is where true friendships are born," Bucky says dryly. He flicks his finger in mild counterpoint to Peggy's. It's got to feel weird as hell for Steve. "You okay, or you good?"

"You kidding? If one of you ... touched me any further north ... I'd be done for. Speaking of, why don't we try that. C'mon. Go for it. Touch me."

The two of them share a smirk as they jointly realize that Steve has picked up on their unspoken desire for him to keep his hands to himself. He hasn't reached for his cock once since they started and Bucky is belatedly impressed. Even he rubbed himself a little just to dull the ache, and his two best friends haven't been working at him all night trying to completely undo him.

Goddamn, that guy is stubborn. If they'd actually told him not to touch himself, he probably would have. As it is, he just took the hint and ran with it.

Bucky's got to admire that kind of resolve and so he looks to Peggy, eyebrows raised in question. She nods and it only takes a minute or so for the tight ring of his fingers curling just under the head, shallow strokes with the slightest twist, for Steve to surge his hips up with a shout.

"Ha!" Steve stays bowstring-tight for all of two second before he sinks back down, letting out tiny moans in the after."Ah. Oh, God. You two. Thank you. You're something else."

"I daresay we coordinated our plan of attack perfectly." Peggy gently slides her fingers out and Bucky's along with them. The condom goes back into the little envelope from which it came, and then into a handkerchief.

"Execution was flawless," Bucky agrees. She's playing up the proper Englishwoman bit, but it's actually a turn-on and she's probably noticed.

"How did..." Bucky waves his hand vaguely between them, squinting curiously. "How did that happen?"

"A woman's not entitled to her secrets in these modern times?"

She's fucking with him. He raises an eyebrow.

She shrugs. "I had quite the adventurous lover some years back who left me with something of a taste for exploring oft-neglected aspects of male sexuality." She pauses. "Also, Steve has a lovely arse, and when I asked if I could play with it, he said yes."

Steve swallows hard and nods. He draws a hand down his face. "I hate to say it, Buck, 'cause I've loved everything we've done together, but Peggy's got the most amazing hands. I knew it could be nice. I didn't know it could melt your spine right through the floor."

"Fair enough." He lays his forearm across Steve's knee to lean against him. "Who gives better head, though?"

Steve looks horribly offended by the question. "Really, Buck?"

"Yeah, I must've left my etiquette somewhere. Peg, check the condom, it might've crawled into there."

"Yeah, yeah."

Peggy's not offended in the least. On the contrary, she looks pensive. "I suppose we'll just have to set some time aside and have a test. Certainly not tonight. I must warn you, though, James, that you may have an unfair advantage over me, as I've considerably less experience in that area."

"I don't know," he admits. "I've mainly just been with Steve, and you know how he gets."

"Bit of an oral fixation, hasn't he? Hard to get a chance to practice."

Steve leans up on his elbows and stares at them with a look that's somewhere between deeply mortified and patently disbelieving, as though he's actually spotted an angel but walked in on it having sex. He gets up to find another cloth to wipe himself down with, and as he's poking around Peggy and Bucky chat about Steve. If it really got to him then they'd stop, but the back of his neck heats and Bucky can see the little thrill he's getting from being talked up like he's not even there.

Bucky's just got through describing the summer Steve stayed over his place and woke him up almost every night with a hard-on in his back when Steve comes up behind him and yanks the back of his pants up. It's not that hard, not really, but with a still fairly sizable erection taking up real estate, it's an uncomfortable squeeze.

He swears. "Alright, alright." He gets to his feet and faces Steve, who's managed to to wipe himself down and scrub at his face a little.

"Well, now that you've killed the mood," Steve says dryly. He tugs at the buttons on Bucky's fly until they come apart and yanks his pants and shorts down in one go.

He's just standing there with his pants around his ankles and most of an erection oscillating around. "Was there a plan, or were we going to play charades and just see what happens?"

"I was thinking that you should put that to good use." Steve's staring at his cock with the same hunger he'd leveled at Peggy earlier when he'd had his eye on her. It's gratifying to be on the receiving end of, more intense than he'd remembered. "Peggy thought so, too. I'm good for it."

"Talked about it, huh? So much for me calling the shots." He's kidding and they must know it, but they look half-serious.

"We've been following your orders all night," Peggy protests.

"You've been terrible at following orders." They really have been, but he says it with all of the love he can possibly pack into one sentence.

"We've made a concerted effort and you cannot deny our results," she corrects. "Now, I think it's high time you fucked your man, James. Can I count on you?"

It's hard to deny the effect that her words have on him when the evidence bobs a little in excitement, about the same as the shiver that jolts up his spine.

He sighs, affecting a put-upon air. "Well, alright, but I gotta tell you, I had a plan and everything."

"I know you did," Steve says. He pulls Bucky toward him and kisses him deeply, like they haven't really gotten the chance to. His hands slide up the back of Bucky's neck.

"I just have one question," he says, voice light with mock-concern. He presses his lips together tightly, trying not to laugh. "Who's going to give you the good screwing you deserve? You want that, don't you?"

"Oh, I do. But as ever, James, I've come prepared, and I'm well and truly able to screw myself."

She's fucking with him again. She's trying to rein in a little smile and look serious, but it's not working. After a beat, she reaches into a drawer and pulls out a long, narrow case, which she rattles softly, eliciting a soft thumping sound.

"Antiques," she says. "Who knew?"


End file.
